Looping with a keyboard

Pulled out my old Roland RD-250s this weekend and plugged into my guitar
looping home rig (compressor, Whammy Pedal, volume pedal, Boogie Subway
Rocket, ART SGE multi-fx, Rane mixer splitting the effected signal to an
8 second delay and a 4 second delay in parallel, back into the Boogie's
power section and out a 10" speaker).
The RD-250 is a weighted-key MIDI controller with a few onboard
sounds--three acoustic pianos, harpsichord, vibes, clavinova, two
electric pianos. This was my first time using it in a looping context,
and it was an interesting experience. Altering the eq on the effected
signal, with the usual delay/reverb produced all sorts of spooky sounds.
The less than perfect fidelity of the delays also helped transform
acoustic piano sounds into something new. I was pleased to find that
most of my guitar tricks (volume pedal swells, heavy compression before
the preamp, judicious use of the Whammy's octave-up harmonization) worked
with the keyboard. Turning on the distortion on the amp in conjunction
with the Whammy brought up all sorts of cool analog synth sounds.
I don't have an external sound module, and you can't edit the sounds in
the Roland, but I was really pleased with the "guitaristic" approach to
signal processing--running it through low-fi pedals and effects. The
Whammy pedal in particular was great for adding all sorts of wobble and
usable unpredicatablity in a way that I haven't encountered in synth
patches.
I'll definitly be trying this out on some of my solo gigs.
Travis Hartnett